I take many briefings from these types of vendors (primarily the ones I cover in Forrester’s Endpoint Visibility and Control category) and within the first 5 minutes of the conversation, the vendor mentions that their solution has a “small footprint.” The use of this phrase is the equivalent of nails scratching their way across a chalkboard for me. When was the last time you heard anyone say that they have a “large footprint?” Please provide more information: Do you run in user or kernel land? What are the impacts to utilization? Even if a vendor truly has a “small footprint,” when that new agent is deployed to a host that already has four or five agents running, the collective footprint is far from small.

Critical infrastructure is frequently on my mind, especially the ICS/SCADA within the energy sector. I live in Texas; oil and natural gas are big here ya'll. I'm just a short distance away from multiple natural gas drilling sites. I cannot help but think about the risks during the extraction and transport of this natural gas. North Texas has seen an attempt to bomb the natural gas infrastructure. In 2012, Anson Chi attempted to destroy an Atmos Energy pipeline in Plano, Texas. As a security and risk professional, I wonder about the potential cyber impacts an adversary with Chi's motivations could have.

We recently published part 1 of a new series designed to help organizations build resiliency against targeted attacks. In the spirit of Maslow, we designed our Targeted-Attack Hierarchy Of Needs. One factor that significantly drove the tone and direction of this research was Forrester client inquiries and consulting. Many organizations were looking for a malware sandbox to check off their targeted attack/advanced persistent threat/advanced threat protection/insert buzzword needs. Malware analysis has a role in enterprise defense, but focusing exclusively on it is a myopic approach to addressing the problem.

Part 1 of the research is designed to help organizations broaden their perspective and lay the foundation for a resilient security program. Part 2 (currently writing at a non George R.R. Martin pace) will move beyond the basics and address strategies for detecting and responding to advanced adversaries. Here is a preview of the research and the six needs we identified:

I am about to kick off my next Forrester research on targeted attacks. Here is the short abstract: "The threat landscape has evolved but organizations haven't. Leveraging concepts of Zero Trust, this report will detail strategies for protecting against targeted attacks against your organization. We will focus on the pros and cons of various strategies and provide suggestions for maximizing your investments." If you'd like a preview to the tone of this research please see one of my previous blogs: "Kim Kardashian and APTs."

Vendors: The focus of this research is on overall strategy and NOT on specific vendor capabilities. We look forward to detailed vendor conversations when we do follow on Waves or Market Overviews in the future.

Enterprises: If you would like to provide us feedback on your experience with defending against targeted attacks, we would love to hear from you. If you purchased a magic anti-APT box and it is/isn't living up to your expectations, let us know. We are currently scheduling research interviews. Research interviews are open to more than just Forrester clients. If you aren't a client and would like to participate, we will provide you a complimentary copy of the final research upon completion.